1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer systems adapted to manage information elements disposed on arrays and axes thereof. The present invention more specifically relates to methods and apparatuses for displaying, organizing and navigating among information elements disposed in arrays and axes thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are becoming more and more graphically rich in displaying documents, icons and other information elements. Today's lists of documents are turning progressively into highly graphical sequences of documents from which users can attain greater meaning and purpose than before. This is due primarily to the fact that modern GUIs display graphically complex thumbnails, icons and file previews; large number of documents and highly customized ordering of sequences in which the objects displayed are presented.
A sequence of documents may be presented in arrays of various forms, such as an axis, a group of axes or a matrix. The array, if it contains a large number of documents, can extend in its virtual form, outside the display area that is visible to the user. In such cases, the user can scroll or otherwise navigate the array to bring documents that are not visible into the display area. This can, however, be difficult or even confusing if the visible portion of the array of documents displays few or no documents. This can occur in the case when the distribution of documents in the array is uneven. Documents may be unevenly distributed on an axis or a matrix of documents. For example, this can take place if the latter is configured to display documents on a scale divided into successive collation units. For instance, an array collating documents in chronological order would place documents in time units (e.g. by day, month, year, etc.) corresponding to the date assigned to each document by the system or by the user. Some time units, for instance the days of the week, may therefore contain no documents. The lack of documents for a specific time unit would graphically result in empty space in the display area.
If the display area shows large spaces that do not contain any documents, it may then be difficult or impossible for the user to know where the portion(s) of the array containing documents—if any—is located in relation to the display area. On the one hand, it may not be intuitive for the user to scroll a row or column of an array of documents if no document is shown in the portion of the row or column that is visible in the display area. It is also possible that the next visible document in a row or column be located in a time unit that is very far from the one(s) appearing in the display area at that specific moment. The user would then need to scroll for a very long time in order to reach the next document. Likewise, an axis, row or column of an array of documents might not display any document thereon because the display area has gone beyond the first or last document on it. The user might then wrongfully scroll the axis, row or column in a direction where there are simply no more documents to be displayed. Finally, when a group of axes, rows or columns is displayed, the zoom level of the display area is set in such a way that makes it difficult for one to visualize the total number of axes, columns or rows contained by the array. Moreover, this would make it nearly impossible or relatively difficult for one to know the number of axes, columns or rows present in each direction outside of the display area.
In a related fashion, an axis or an array can contain documents that display various degrees of relevance to a user based on the attributes associated with each document or group thereof. Documents, in general, can be unevenly distributed in an array in dependence of they manner in which they are initially organized in the respective array. Finding the documents, from an array, that are deemed relevant by the user may, therefore, be difficult or even confusing when few or no relevant documents appear in the display area.
It is therefore desirable to provide proper indications and means adapted for the navigation of an array of documents when the distribution of documents therein is uneven over the existing art.
It is also desirable to indicate to a user, when few or no documents are displayed in the viewer's display area, if any documents or axes remain in a given direction of an axis, row or column of an array, and if so, how many documents or axes remain in that direction.
It is equally desirable to indicate to a user how far the next non-displayed document is located on a given axis, row, or column of an array of documents.
It is also desirable to provide indications and means for efficiently navigating an axis, row or column of an array of documents when few or no documents are displayed in the display area in order to help a user bring the next non-displayed document into the display area without having to manually scroll through all the empty collation units in the axis, row, or column of the array.
It is also desirable to provide an improved method for simultaneously navigating all the axes, rows or columns of the array in order to change the portion of the array of documents that is displayed in a display area.
It is yet also desirable to provide a method and system adapted to find and navigate documents deemed relevant by a user when such documents are located on an axis, row or column of a display but are not displayed in the user's display area.
Other deficiencies will become apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains in view of the following summary and detailed description with its appended figures.